Not watering due to surplus
No water still and grass is starting to brown. I recently started using a key with Wunderground so that I get observed rain. I changed the soil type to sandy loam even though I have clay. There is still no water showing as scheduled for the next 4 days. Forecast shows .17 for each of those days, but I often get no rain as they are brief isolated thunderstorms. Can someone take a look at my system and confirm I'm not missing something?
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So it looks like you have a lot of available water in soil maybe from a bad forecast when you didn't have observed data from WU ? I would just press the "SET TO OPTIMAL" button or delete program and create a new one (which will reset Available Water for all zones in that new program)
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I am experiencing similar issues. The Rainmachine does not seem to correct quickly for rain that was predicted, but did not happen. If the forecast shows .2 inches of rain for tomorrow, the device will skip tomorrow mornings watering program in anticipation. When the actual rainfall data comes in at 11:59pm tomorrow night showing 0.0 inches of rain for the day, I'd expect the following morning's program to run 100% or more, but, NO there is more rain predicted for that day, so it again does not run!
How can we get the device water after such a situation where the rainfall forecast does not happen?
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I am seeing the same thing. In the summer here (southeast US), we have rain forecast for multiple times a week but almost never get anything more than a 5-minute afternoon sprinkling. Summer rain showers are totally random and impossible to predict. So very frequently my programs either do not run or else only run at shortened 15% times, we do not get any rain, then the program does not run again for 3 days.
This is a major problem for me as I cannot trust the automation at all. Unless the forecast is 90% or higher, I do not want RM to alter the program. I am fine with changing the program based on actual rainfall over the last day or two, but weighting unreliable forecasts this heavily is not working out.
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I already have my own Netatmo station with rain and wind gauges, and it is connected and enabled. I also have NOAA enabled.
I don't want to ignore ALL forecast data - I really just want the programs to only get modified when the forecast is something like 70%+ chance of more than .5 inches of rain in the next 24 hours.
My rain sensitivity is set to 80%, so maybe I'll just try dropping that to 50% or so and keep checking the calculations each day to see what that does.
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I'm frustrated by the same issue. Having looked at this for several hours now, I'm convinced that the math is just wrong. I have a zone set to Loamy sand, -50% Field Capacity (so just 0.18in), and we've gotten very little rain in weeks, yet today RM skipped the zone altogether due to "Adaptive Frequency Skip". An adjacent zone with the same settings (without reduced Field Capacity, so 0.45in) was run for 12 out of a scheduled 14 minutes. I have other zones that were skipped due to "Minimum watering time" – I totally understand that one, those are working correctly. But then I have a total of 5 zones that were skipped for no apparent reason.
What's the difference between "Adaptive Frequency Skip" and "Minimum watering time". In this Kbase article I see three different phrases used to describe what seems like the same thing:
Minimum Water Threshold if this is under the minimum you have set, the program will not water. This quantity will 'carry-over' to the next watering event.
Adaptive Frequency is a smart feature of RainMachine that allows skipping a programmed cycle if the quantity of irrigation applied is too low to be beneficial to plant growth.
Minimum Rollover Threshold allows users to set a minimum time for their sprinklers to run. Any time below that threshold will roll over to the next watering cycle.
In the Zone settings, I only see "Minimum Rollover Threshold", and again, I understand that one. I have (had!) "Use adaptive frequency" set for my single watering program, but why would it be applied so differently to two zones that were basically identical? Here's a screenshot of my watering History. Note that the "Bay Lawn" watering time of 35 minutes occurred only because I ran that zone manually for 35 minutes. That zone had been skipped.
I also feel that the EvapoTranspiration math is consistently wrong. We've gotten very little rain for weeks, yet my zone charts show a water surplus. My brown grass would beg to differ. I've made a lot of changes since taking this next screenshot, including the addition of my own weather station. However, like previous posters, I'm not convinced that this is going to fix the math issue. Perhaps instead of predicating behavior on predictions, could Rain Machine be configure to only schedule watering based on actual, measured rainfall? I want to save water, but I'm growing weary of spending so much time babysitting my irrigation system.
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I'm also seeing quite a bit of brown spots even after adding an additional evening program to run alongside my usual morning program. I've already adjusted the rain sensitivity from 45% down to 20%. I've also ensured all my zones are set to "optimal." I've also adjusted each zone from a +10% field capacity down to a -10% field capacity. I've had my RM unit for going on three years and this is the first season I seem to be having issues with my lawn staying more brown than green. Along with the other posters here in this thread, I would greatly appreciate any insight anyone can offer.
Thanks, in advance!
Kory
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